Programska knjižica - Hrvatsko filozofsko društvo

Although he emphasized that no lie is without sin, in De institutione, a bestseller
that was in the 16 th century alone published over 50 times, he noted
that sometimes it may be “necessary to pretend, cover up and lie”. In order to
substantiate this statement, this notable citizen of Split presented 31 example
(event) in which main protagonists, those who made use of a lie, were to a
large extent persons from biblical books of the Old and the New Testament, as
well as from the writings of church writers, e. g. John Cassian (Ioannes Cassianus)
and Jerome of Stridon (Hieronymus Stridonensis). In the outlined examples
Marulić differentiated between 15 ways of lying and he also presented
16 reasons justifying the conduct (lying) of the main protagonists.
After analysis of the doctrine of a lie offered in De institutione, it seems
that Marulić was of the opinion that lying is a part of everyday life for majority
of people. For that reason he advised us not to trust one another. Furthermore,
he concluded his doctrine of a lie with this sentence by prophet Jeremiah: “Let
each one guard himself against his neighbour, and let him have no trust in any
brother of his!”
Contrary to his judgements presented in De institutione, in Evangelistarium,
the work that according to Drago Šimundža “belongs to the very top of
Marulić’s moral-theological writings”, Marulić no longer persists that lying is
necessarily a sin. When he taught about lying, he incorporated into Evangelistarium
the kind of a lie he claimed to be merit (meritum), so from this work we
come to knowledge that lying “sometimes does not stand for sin, but for credit,
for example when one invents parables or apologies for lectures in virtue”.
Besides a detailed outline of Marulić’s doctrine of a lie, the presentation
will offer answer to the question: After more than 500 years from establishment
of Marulić’s doctrine of a lie, but also related to the statement of Immanuel
Kant from 1797 noted in the text “On the Supposed Right to Lie because of
Philanthropic Concerns” (“To be truthful /honest/ in all declarations is, therefore,
a sacred and unconditionally commanding law of reason that admits of
no expediency whatsoever”), is it possible, and when so, to which extent is it
justified and well-founded to claim that our everyday life, our mutual, family,
but also political relations, even within the clergy and related circles inclined to
it, are dominate by deliberations who had been represented by Croatian renaissance
thinker Marko Marulić?
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